


Lost Hearts

by havisham



Category: Castlevania (Cartoon)
Genre: Dissection, Hearts, Just Friends Being Buds, M/M, Weird Biology, consensual vivisection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-22
Updated: 2018-11-22
Packaged: 2019-08-27 17:44:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 703
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16707049
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/havisham/pseuds/havisham
Summary: Isaac has a powerful curiosity. Dracula indulges him.





	Lost Hearts

It shouldn’t have been a surprise that Dracula had very cold hands. There was no circulation in his body, of course, to the point where Isaac wondered what happened to the blood he drank. Did it just distribute throughout his body slowly, or did the magic that animated him take care of it all? 

He’d discovered long ago that such questions did not necessary need answers. It was merely interesting to consider them. 

“Isaac, what is your answer?” Dracula asked, his voice gentle but unyielding. His face was sunk-in and wasted looking. He was starving. If Isaac were to offer all the blood in his body, Dracula would refuse him. 

This Isaac knew, so instead he offered a tiny amount, a sip that Dracula could take with no injury to his pride. “I cannot give much, but you may have a little.” 

“Thank you,” Dracula said, with a faint smile. He accepted the offer because, while it was clear that he wished to die, he could not do it before avenging the death of his wife. 

What a fearsome thing it was, Isaac reflected, to be loved by such a man. 

*

If Isaac could be allowed to study Dracula… Internally, he shuddered at the thought of it, but his master knew too well the turn of his thoughts. 

“You have a scientific mind,” he said with approval. “Perhaps in less benighted times, it would have been to your advantage rather than not so.” 

“Thank you,” Isaac replied. “But my interest is not strictly scientific. I am -- curious as how you are still able to function, even as you are, technically dead.” 

“Isaac, it’s magic. Magic keeps me functioning.” 

“Magic in the form of the blood of the living.” 

“Just so.” 

“Do you care to investigate it?” 

Dracula drew back, interested despite himself. “How so?” 

*

And that was how Isaac found himself with Dracula himself lying on the slab in front of him. With his eyes were closed and his hands folded neatly across his chest, Dracula looked to all the world like a corpse laid out for a funeral. 

However -- “I will have to move your arm, Dracula. It would be better for the purposes of examination if they were laid out on your side.” 

Dracula did not respond, but loosened his position enough that Isaac was able to arrange his limbs in way he saw fit. 

He made his first cut along the veins of the arm, peeling back the skin to see pink flesh and pale blood vessels, as well as white viseria. Everything was enough like the humans that Isaac had dissected that he felt a little disappointed. Whatever magic propelled Dracula into an undead life, it was apparently not visible to the naked eye. 

Dracula lifted his hand and flexed his cut open arm. Isaac watched as the cut knit together in front of his eyes, skin closing over the cut. 

“I’ll make an incision inside the chest now,” he announced, waiting for Dracula’s nod. When it came, he set to work. It was tough going -- Dracula’s healing was such that it fought against every cut Isaac made, every inch he saw into was precious territory to be gained. 

But finally, after what seemed to be hours of work, Isaac had opened up Dracula’s chest enough to remove his heart. The heart was as pale and shriveled as the rest Dracula’s organs -- the ones he’d seen, anyway, but something about holding it in his hands excited Isaac almost more than he could bear. 

On impulse, he pressed his lips against it -- a reverent kiss that was interrupted by Dracula himself. 

“Don’t drop it,” he said, which of course meant that Isaac nearly did.

*

In the end, Isaac patched his master up again and waited for him to rise from the slab, the same as ever. It was not that he had learned nothing from the day’s activities, but in truth, he was not sure what he had learned -- except something about himself, and his often terrible desires. 

But Isaac already knew that. And now Dracula did too -- and still he accepted him. 

To be loved by such a man -- what a privilege and what a terror it truly was. 

**Author's Note:**

> I really love this M.R. James ghost story, _Lost Hearts_ \-- about an evil antiquarian, mummies in basements, and, of course, lost hearts. I keep thinking about writing a 19th century Castlevania AU in the style of M.R. James (featuring Dracula, Isaac and Hector (as a pair of Spiritualist mediums who can absolutely bring back the dead)) but my brain keeps tripping over a _19th_ century _Dracula_ ... _AU???_
> 
> So yeah!! Lemme know if you're interested.


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